feedback loop is broken

dear peter and david,

i think i found your flying cars.

[guessing you knew that.. but then.. why have we not yet.. so just in case…ie: using energy/resources on labeling people… rather than on creating tech. from algebra pdf: the algebraic approach is well suited to modeling the allowable uses of information when the restrictions on that use are determined by the path by which the information is obtained, but it is not so good at dealing with restrictions that are time dependent or inherent in the content of the information, independent of the path. when formalized algebraically, computations are directly representable as purely functional computer programs. this makes it easy to verify that a program that implements the data-purpose algebraic computations is correct.correct. but not right. not feedback looping us to us.]

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we (for a multitude of reasons .. but perhaps mostly fear) have manufactured ourselves right out of ourselves. we’ve sophisticatedly, academically, a whole bunch of other ly’s, but perhaps most of all, .. mathematically.. cranked/contorted/compromised who we already are for the sake of proof/safety/proof-of-safety (or whatever). and the end result is – our feedback loop (globally and individually and everything in between) is broken.

perhaps i say most of all mathematically, because we’ve so collectively convinced ourselves.. that if we can’t explain our answer.. there’s no room for grokking it ourselves.

but perhaps..

just because people aren’t shouting doesn’t mean they’re silent.. just because people don’t show up in the ways you expect doesn’t mean they’re hiding. – dm

just because people don’t use your idiosyncratic jargon or some collectively determine idiosyncratic jargon.. doesn’t mean they’re not speaking/thinking/grokking..

perhaps..

our work is to listen better.- dm

and that’s it.

perhaps our work is to quit using labels and algebra .. to fix/control things..

It is that hand-waving about a fascist state can confuse us about what making democracy looks like. – tm

These stories, which we love, can lull us into thinking that social change is polite when historically and presently it is anything but. Still, we clamor for polite protests that follow imaginary rulebooks for Democracy 101. – tm

martin luther was treated like a criminal in his day – tc

Very few people want to be actual fascists or actual racists but they don’t want to be late for work or awakened by sirens either. – tm

we are 5 questions too late – tc

The media rarely calls people racists.

Even when people’s fetish for rules over justice makes them complicit in extra-judicial murder of black men, women and children. – tm

The “No-Racists” Feedback Loop – tm

Of course, media outlets don’t reflect the U.S. population as much as they reflect the demographic make-up of the nation’s power elite. – tm

of course, people outputs don’t reflect the people as much as they reflect the demo make up of the algebra. – me

Digital media was supposed to blow this wide open. – tm

www was supposed to blow this open.. but (via tim via don) – web was placed on top of society that’s anything but ie: p2p

Given the research that shows that people also rarely call anything racist, even when acknowledging racism, we end up in a divine feedback loop: people see racism but no racists and media will only report on what people say is racist.

The feedback loop can feel like a noose when you are organizing against the very racism people might agree exists but that no one will name. – tm

How can you organize around acts of racism to do the work that well-meaning folk don’t do when we can call something fascist but can’t call anything racist?

That’s the media climate the Missouri students were navigating. They chose to do what social movement organizations almost always do: They tried to control their message.

Mizzou student organizers used social media because it allows some of that control, granting access to media organizations on their terms and sometimes denying it altogether.

They did this knowing that sensationalist headlines are used to generate revenue and sometimes the algorithmically driven choices can malign as much as they can report. – tm

As a result of all of this, many of us now know a bit more about the machinery of modern organizing in our culture.

That’s how the democratic sausage is made and this week it was made by a group of young people whose safety, well-being and accomplishments trump creative license and metaphor. – tm

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perhaps…

the simplest (and most humane\energy efficient) way to fix this major problem with our major feedback loop.. is to get back to us.

perhaps Blaise wasn’t so concerned we immerse ourselves in school math ness.. but that we immerse ourselves in us.